Data drives efficient retail real estate decision-makingMaking the right decisions with the right data is obviously something retailers strive to do in all areas of their business. However, when it comes to real estate, “getting it right” is even more critical.

A&G Realty Partners, a leading commercial real estate, advisory and investment group, has been retained by RadioShack to manage the sale of retail store leases and warehouses following the company's recent Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.

The country as a whole has weathered some difficult economic times in the past several years, with the Northeast among the hardest-hit regions. The Northeast retail real estate market felt the impact of both fewer shoppers as consumers moved to areas of the country with better job opportunities, and reductions in the size and frequency of shopping trips.

However, just as the economic prospects of the country have started improving of late, so too have the economic prospects of the Northeast started improving, with the regional real estate market benefiting.

With buzz phrases like “omnichannel” and “customer disruption” dominating the retail conversation, landlords and tenants attending RECon 2014 in Las Vegas last May made it their mission to ensure that brick-and-mortar remains relevant. ­

Even as the economy continues on a path of slow improvement, brick-and-mortar retailers still find themselves in a real estate market with few vacancies and even fewer new malls under construction. In addition, corporate management remains reluctant to expend any more capital than it feels is absolutely necessary to meet immediate needs.

While owners and developers are redeveloping, expanding and beginning to plan new developments across the Northeast, property surpluses created by the recession remain. Where are these surpluses? How will they be disposed of? Chain Store Age asked Andy Graiser, co-president of A&G Realty Partners, to talk about disposition today in the Northeast. Graiser is a property disposition expert with more than 25 years of experience with retail real estate.

Now, as the recession finally begins to lift, brick-and-mortar retailers are studying their real estate concepts and pondering what comes next.

Some will pare store counts, partially in response to online competition. Some will cut store square footage. Others are expanding store numbers and square footage. Some are expanding fulfillment center square footage. Some are not changing. Careful about that.

What are you doing? Is it what you should be doing?

What are retail real estate advisers and technology providers recommending?

I visited my first Von Maur store in 1999, a decade after I relocated from southern boomtown Atlanta to Lincoln, Neb., a sleepy college town that only really wakes up on Husker football Saturdays. Today I am back home in Baton Rouge, La., still no bustling metropolis, but the food and football trump.

A heat wave washed over Las Vegas just in time for the International Council of Shopping Centers’ annual RECon event May 20-23 — and the mood inside the Las Vegas Convention Center was just as elevated.

“I am very bullish on this year’s RECon,” said Andy Graiser, co-president of A&G Realty Partners, Melville, N.Y. “Growth is becoming evident in most all categories, and it’s smart growth.”

As part of our ongoing coverage of RECon, the annual retail real estate convention conducted by the International Council of Shopping Centers and held May 22-25 in Las Vegas, Chain Store Age talked with Andy Graiser, co-president of DJM Realty, a Gordon Brothers Group company, based in Melville, N.Y., about his key takeaways from RECon 2011.

On Feb. 17, Borders Group announced that it had retained Melville, N.Y.-based DJM Realty to manage the disposition project of the 200 stores that would be shuttered as a result of the bookseller’s just-reported Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. CSA talked with Andy Graiser, co-president of DJM Realty, about the assignment, and how a better Borders might emerge from the process.

Solutions Spotlight

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